Rare earth elements (REE) are critical for sustainable energy infrastructure, but their current environmental impact is simply too high. REEgen is reimagining the global rare earth supply by replacing the most harmful production steps with clean microbial processes, securing these critical elements for a future of unbounded, widespread renewable energy.
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Alexa Schmitz
Alexa Schmitz is a biological engineer with a passion for solving problems—especially those related to sustainable energy. With support from ARPA-E, she developed a technology for recovering rare earth elements using engineered microbes as a postdoc in the Barstow Lab in biological and environmental engineering at Cornell University and as a postdoctoral fellow for the Cornell Energy Systems Institute. Schmitz holds a Ph.D. from Cornell in plant pathology and plant-microbe biology.
Schmitz co-founded REEgen with Sean Medin, a graduate student in the Barstow Lab.
TECHNOLOGY
Critical Need
Rare earth elements (REE) are critical for many sustainable energy technologies including electric vehicles, wind turbines, fluorescent lighting, battery anodes, and high-strength lightweight alloys. These applications are rapidly increasing demands on the global REE supply, which is predominantly controlled outside of the United States due to environmental hazards of traditional extraction and purification processes. Mining for REE minerals can have large environmental impacts, which could be mitigated by recycling end-of-life products, such as fluorescent bulbs, consumer electronics, and magnets. Together these represent more than 80 percent of the REE market, yet the current recycling rate is below 5 percent.
Technology Vision
With recent advances in genetic engineering, biological processes hold unbounded potential to solve many problems in sustainable energy. REEgen is providing a biological solution for REE recovery and purification using engineered microbes to replace the most environmentally damaging steps from source to market. These processes can be further optimized for scaleup and tailored to a diversity of REE sources by leveraging the power of genomics. Using cleaner biological processes, and through recycling of waste products, REEgen aims to regenerate the U.S. rare earth economy to sustainably meet the nation’s full demand at a competitive price, and with minimal environmental impact.
Potential for Impact
Reviving the domestic rare earth industry is crucial for ensuring the long-term health of the U.S. sustainable energy industry. Clean, sustainable processes for REE recovery will dramatically improve the global supply of REE and enable rapid expansion of sustainable energy infrastructure, which is imperative for the reversal of climate change. Communities around the world, especially those that are historically underserved, are threatened by a limited supply of energy, even if consumption is reduced. Securing a reliable source of REE will allow for unfettered adoption and innovation of new technologies that could unlock a future with unlimited, clean energy worldwide.